


Cease to Find Fault

by Wixom (SunlitDarkness)



Category: New Mutants, X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Temporary Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Mormonism, canon resurrection, religious questions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-24 17:03:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13815582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunlitDarkness/pseuds/Wixom
Summary: Your best friend is an alien robot. You’ve been to Asgard. You’ve been to Hell and met demons.Your teammates have magic and powers that your church cannot explain.





	Cease to Find Fault

**Author's Note:**

> I was digging through various wikis and Marvel databases, and Cypher (and his family) are listed as Mormon characters. I'm assuming that this is a "creator/writer said so" thing. I'll accept this because you cannot look at Doug and tell me he does not believe Jell-O to be its own food group.
> 
> Basically, I wanted to talk about it, so I did.

Your name is Douglas Ramsey.  
Some of your friends call you Doug.  
The name you chose for yourself is Cypher.

And you are fluent in everything.

You died when you were fourteen.  
You’re not dead now. You got better. It’s a long story.

Your parents belong to the Mormon church. You were raised in it. A little. Somewhat. Just enough. It told you things that you needed to know, introduced you to a world bigger than you could’ve thought. Later you learn that the world, the multiverse, is even bigger than that. There is life far beyond the confines of the solar system. Your best friend is an alien robot. You’ve been to Asgard. You’ve been to Hell and met demons.

Your teammates have magic and powers that your church cannot explain. _You have powers that they cannot explain._ But it’s okay. Sorta. Your parents understand when you say you don’t want to go to church anymore. You were twelve when you made that choice.

But you walk away and take a handful of your religion with you. There is a god. And it is a god who cares about you and knows your name. Your god wants good things to happen for you and is cheering for you to be your best self. And you believe that when you die, you’ll meet your god and tell them about your life, and you will rest and learn and continue to talk to your god.

You take your admiration and respect for the Latter Day Saints’ temples and in off-moments in unfamiliar cities, you find yourself comforted by the spires of their church houses. And this is enough.

You are fourteen, and you are killed.

It is years before you are brought back. Not that you were _expecting_ that, but it happened. Your powers are sharp. Sharper than they’ve ever been. When you wake up and shake off the last dregs of mind control, you wonder in passing about how sins under mind control are accounted for. You put it out of your mind. There is no peace in those questions.

Your former (current?) teammates are unnerved by your return, and you can read it in every angle of their bodies. You understand this, you can read this, and you wonder if they know it themselves. You work to catch up on what happened during your death. You give yourself a cursory analysis and acknowledge that you are definitely not fourteen anymore.

You discuss this with Warlock. You discuss many things with Warlock. He’s skittish about some of your questions, and his code has evened out in an familiar way. There’s a puzzle there that you could pluck the answer to if you wanted to look, but Warlock doesn’t want you to know. So you let it rest and soak in his presence. You missed him.

The world is in danger again and again and again. It never really stops being as such. And you remember so much and see so much more. You learn and you wait and, occasionally, you send a bitter and sad prayer to your god, asking and pleading for them to put in a good word for your fallen friends. And occasionally, your enemies.

You join Lorna’s team in Virginia. Warlock comes with you, and there is a second AI who goes by Danger. You’re comforted and on edge. You’re walking a line that you cannot explain. You can understand Pietro’s speed talking, can converse with him at that level to some extent, but you’ll be damned if you had to repeat any of it. Pietro’s shit is his own. Sometimes. Lorna asks you in the field one day if you can read a wall of text. It is socially inappropriate to smack your forehead into said wall, so you roll your eyes as a close second for the language you want to convey. You ask if she can lift the nail on the floor. She’s exasperated by your teasing. You’re fond of her, you realize.

You’re fond of all of them. Even Remy.

There is a half moment of down-time. Not a lot, perhaps a half day, but it is enough for you to make your way to DC. It has changed so immensely since the last time you were here. And that was years and years ago. You soak in the newness and revel in the momentary freedom. Just you and your senses and this city bursting with life.

It is a Thursday evening; nothing particularly special about it. You listen to the mutant politics on the news boards until it makes your heart sad and something sits wrong in your chest. You hail a cab to Kensington and make your way to the Washington DC temple. To your temple.

You do not enter. You can’t actually. You were dead, and you haven’t been active in any way since your youth. But you wander the grounds and luxuriate in the quiet, in the greenness, in the peace of the shadow of your temple. The one your parents were married in. The one whose image hangs in your family home. There’s a fountain and as the sun sets, the lights of the temple reflect in the water. When you lean over it, you can read a scatter image silhouette of yourself.

_You are unworthy. You are unclean. This is the House of the Lord; a house of glory, of order, of faith. What have you to bring? To offer? Where have you been?_

The voice that reads your reflection is mostly your own. There’s a tint of judgemental leaders and peers, a whisper of sorrow that sounds like your parents. But not the voice of your god. Still, it is a reminder—your dark shadow and the glowing white building in the pool together—that you have chosen to live a different life than the one that would lead you inside.

You call the cab again and return to Serval. As the scenery changes, you review your handful of truths.

There is a god. And it is a god who cares about you and knows your name. Your god wants good things to happen for you and is cheering for you to be your best self.

You wait. Well, you do not. Time waits for no man and there is work to be done. Even as your team draws apart and fractures happen, as people change and loyalties flex, you are busy. Even when this X Factor team disbands you are busy. You are making the mutant’s history accessible. You are travelling and interviewing and compiling and restoring. You are transcribing and translating. You are living.

You call Roberto and ignore the discomfited edge in his voice. He tells you about the team he sponsored, the Young Avengers. You thank him and interview Pietro’s nephews. You grit your teeth, and talk to them without the other present. You leave Tommy your number should he ever want to know what he missed, should he ever _need_ to know like you once did.

It is easy work. Tedious and emotionally taxing sometimes (most times), but easy and you are busy and nobody bothers you unless it’s urgent. Unless it’s desperate. You’re Cypher. Your mutation is not battle ready, like say flight or magma manipulation or any number of other possibilities. Part of you is still bitter about that. You know better for knowledge is power and you hold yours close to your chest.

You meet up with mutants you haven’t seen in years. You see Prodigy again, and you tease him about the yellow glasses. He quips back that yours are the same brand. You laugh, and it’s nice.

And then.

You learn that Kurt Wagner is back from the dead. And you are eaten alive by curiosity. You wait exactly 48 hours before you make your way to the X Mansion. You are polite to the students, to people you’ve worked with and lived with, to children you’ve never seen before in your life. You ask to speak with Kurt.

He is surrounded by, mini hims. Tiny blue demons that cling to your sweater and ask you with wide eyes and questioning smiles to be held and pet and cared for. You know they’re manipulating you, but, it’s no different than a cat or a dog pleading for affection, you reason. Plus they’re obscenely adorable and soft. Kurt is friendly and open. His eyes are tired, but you’ve missed him and your heart aches.

You two were not close the way you’re certain he was close to your other teammates, but some part of you is better after you shake his hand. Some part of you is whole again.

For a while you chatter. You talk about Lorna and your project. You talk about Warlock. You talk about Danger. You ignore the intrigue you read in his eyes. He talks about Jean and Bobby and Rachel. He talks about regaining his footing. You ask if he’s actually won a game of cutthroat pool since getting back. He ignores you, but the bamfs snicker behind their hands.

And you ask Kurt how he came to be alive.

You learn about saving Wolverine and how precisely one sells a soul. You hesitate in your petting of the mini-demon, but its tail loops around your wrist and you are weak. He tells you about looking for Azazel. He tells you about heaven and his place there.

And Kurt asks you about your death and your time being dead. He asks as peers of similar experiences this time. It is so different than the first time you’d been asked, in that narrow window between your resurrection and his death. At that time you’d been navigating to misreadings and tenderfooting of everyone around him, of the misplacement of returning to life. And you have no more of an answer now than you did then.

You cannot tell him about your god and your glory and your afterlife. Your memories skip from your death, from promising Rahne that you….(what _had_ you promised her?), to a time after your body was moving again and you were the one moving it. It is but a hazy moment between the two.

Kurt is patient with your silence. But you’ve no memory of being dead. There is only a sadness and grief too vast to exist in that blink of an eye. You force a half smile and dig up a memory of your church’s plan of salvation. Your heartache roils behind your chest even as you shrug and murmur to Kurt that the veil of forgetfulness exists for people brought back just as surely as those born. It is unhealthy for the living to know of that place which awaits them. You do not know if Kurt can tell you’re lying, but he does not question you on it further.

You finish your talk with Kurt; you pry a bamf from your sweater. You promise to keep in touch; you pry a bamf from your sweater. You send fond smiles to the other X-men as you leave; Kitty pries a bamf from your sweater and your pant leg.

You have forgotten.

At least, that is the easy explanation. You lean against Warlock in your home and you weep. You do not know why you cannot remember. You do not know if you weren’t actually lying to Kurt, or if it’s because of the magic and technology that reunited your soul and your body. IF you are not special enough or worthy enough to remember. If there’s nothing at all to remember.

But you mourn all the same. You poke the raw spot that you’d found with Kurt’s questions, and you mourn. You pull out your handful of faith, and you grieve.

There is a god. And it is a God who cares about you and knows your name. And your god wants good things to happen for you and is cheering for you to be your best self. And you believe that when you die, you'll meet your god and tell them about your life and you will rest and learn and continue to talk to your god.

And you cry for what you know now. You have been dead, and if your god came to get you, they knew your name. Your god knew who your best self was and why you chose what you did. You were at peace and you knew your god. And you were taken from them. 

You did not ask to return, and your god did not send you away. You were kidnapped, and you have forgotten. Your god loves you, and you miss them.

You do not have the language to tell this to Warlock, to tell him why you have no words. There is no language to scrap together an adequate explanation for why you’re weeping. You let him hold you and try to console the all consuming loss and loneliness, the sadness and the betrayal that claws at your throat.

You cannot change it. You do not want to change it.

But the knowledge has changed you nonetheless.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading.  
> This fic is a lot of working through my own feelings regarding leaving the Mormon church. So thanks for reading this piece. I've been working on it for a while now.


End file.
